


Family is Like Fruit

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Clerics Need To Stick Together, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, So Spoilers for Episode 36 of Campaign 2, Takes Place During Episode 36 of Campaign 2, backstory speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-21 02:17:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16150451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: Jester pries the lid off another barrel. What she finds inside causes her to squeak in surprise when she realizes what she’s looking at.“Well that seemed like a happy sound. What did you find?”“Papaya!” Jester grabs one and spins around to show Caduceus, grinning as she holds out the orange-amber fruit to him.“I have no idea what that is, but I am very excited to find out,” Caduceus says, and he’s smiling at her as he takes the offered fruit.Jester smiles back, because both operation make something tasty and make Caduceus happy with food seem to be looking up.





	Family is Like Fruit

So far, the mission to explore the ship’s kitchen and make something delicious for the rest of the Nein was not going terribly well, in Jester’s humble opinion. So far she had found some barrels of beer, some salted meat, some limes and a few smaller containers of oats and peas and lard and the _worst_ crackers Jester had ever tried to eat in her entire life, _tried_ being the keyword. You needed strong jaws like a goliath probably to bite through those.

“These have possibilities,” Caduceus says thoughtfully after he manages to chew through a corner of the terrible cracker thing. He’s sitting on the floor and Jester can’t blame him, he’d be standing all hunched over otherwise.

“We could probably build a really cool fort out of them or something,” Jester agrees as she contemplates the last few barrels. “Or if we _have_ to eat them, I guess we could sprinkle some of that dust of deliciousness on them.”

“I was thinking we could soak them in tea,” Caduceus says. “Or someone could fry them in lard.”

“We should try the tea thing if there’s nothing good in these,” Jester says as she pries the lid of another barrel. What she finds inside causes her to squeak in surprise when she realizes what she’s looking at.

“Well that seemed like a happy sound. What did you find?”

“Papaya!” Jester grabs one and spins around to show Caduceus, grinning as she holds out the orange-amber fruit to him.

“I have no idea what that is, but I am very excited to find out,” Caduceus says, and he’s smiling at her as he takes the offered fruit.

Jester smiles back, because both operation make something tasty _and_ make Caduceus happy with food both seem to be looking up. She goes and fetches a knife and a cutting board from the kitchen and presents both of those to Caduceus. “You should try it while I open the other barrels! Just cut it in half longways. Oh! I forgot!” She goes back into the kitchen and finds a bowl and a spoon. “That’s for the seeds. You can eat them! They’re kinda spicy.”

The last two barrels yield mangos and pineapple, and Jester practically dances to the kitchen to fetch another knife and cutting board. She considers using her hand axe on the pineapple, but figures it probably wouldn’t be very hygienic since it had just been in a man’s skull only a little while ago.

“These are great,” Caduceus says around a mouthful of mango.

“I know, right? Here, try the pineapple.”

Another round of thoughtful chewing. “I’ve never had anything like these before, it’s nothing like what we had growing around the temple.”

Jester realizes then that she doesn’t really _know_ much about where Caduceus was living. She knew he lived in a temple to the Wildmother that was in the middle of a graveyard and that Caduceus made tea with the plants that had grown on the graves, but that was all. “Did you have fruit in your garden too? Not just flowers?”

“Oh yes. When I was young, before the corruption in the woods had gotten as far as it has now, there were apples. Those were nice. And blueberries, we had those once too. The only thing we had left growing in the graveyard after those fell were raspberries and blackberries and strawberries…” Caduceus trails off, eyes widening, and then he _grins_.

Jester is used to Caduceus smiling, he smiles at most everything, which was why it had hurt her heart earlier to see him looking so sad and lost. She had understood how he had felt, more than anyone else realized probably. She can’t help but grin back at him, seeing him look so happy. “What is it? You look like you’ve had the _best_ idea.”

“I don’t know about the best,” Caduceus says. “But I know what we can do with these!” He starts rummaging in his pack, pulling out several little jars of spices. “We’re going to need a large bowl to start with, and a really big spoon, and more fruit.”

It only takes a moment for Jester to find the biggest bowl she can and then the two of them get to work, cutting up the fruit into bite-sized chunks. “What are we making?”

“You’ll see.” Caduceus’s eyes shine. “It’s something we used to do with the strawberries back home, when we had enough of them. It was my little sister’s favorite treat, she used to beg me to make it all the time.”

“You have a sister? That’s so cool!” She’s not used to anyone in this group actually being forthcoming about things like their family or their home life, and she had gotten accustomed to asking the others questions and only getting vague answers. She should have been asking Caduceus _way_ more questions all this time. “Does she have pink hair like you? Ooo, or maybe it’s another color like green or blue or lavender!”

Caduceus chuckles as he dumps his cut up mango into the bowl in front of him and reaches for a papaya, cutting it in half and scooping out the seeds, saving them for later. “She looks like the rest of my family. Dark fur, dark hair, dark eyes, very tall. My big little sister.” He chuckles again. “But then, everyone in my family was taller than me. It was so strange, coming out here and being so much taller than everyone else for a change.”

“Do you have a big family then? I mean, big like a lot of them, not big like tall, you already said they were tall.”

“Well, there was Mom and Dad, and my older brother Mateo, and my older sister Amara, and then there was me, and my little sister Lyta. Is that a lot, for most people?”

“I think so? I mean, like, Fjord grew up in an orphanage and Nott grew up with a whole clan but I don’t think they count all those other people as family. And I _think_ Caleb and Beau only had their mom and dad, and Yasha…I don’t know about Yasha. And I just had my Momma. I always wanted a little sister or brother to play with, but I was Momma’s only surprise.” Thinking about her Momma makes Jester feel a little sad, but she just smiles and keeps chopping pineapples into submission. “So yeah, you had a big family I would say. It must have been nice.”

“It was,” Caduceus says thoughtfully. “I mean, it got smaller once everyone started leaving to try and stop what was going wrong with the woods. Dad left first, and then Amara and Mateo, and then Mom. For a long time it was just me and Lyta. And she was…” Caduceus chuckles again, low and deep. “She was so protective of me. She’s the one who made my armor, before she left, since she wouldn’t be around to protect me from spirits and bandits and the poor corrupted beasts of the woods. As if I wasn’t holding my own in every fight. That was just her way though. And she loved pranking me. Her favorite pastime was to turn herself into different animals and leap at me from the trees or the roof of the temple and scare the life out of me, and then I’d get her back by making sure she woke up covered in beetles when she least suspected it. Things like that. It was fun. But as much as she teased me, Wildmother forbid anyone else come along and pick a fight with her ‘little’ big brother.”

“She could turn into animals? I wish I could do that! I’d be like, a bear all the time! Or a big cat, like a tiger or something!” Jester had gone back to Chastity’s Nook the last time they had been in Zadash and had picked up a few more romance novels, because there was only so many times she could read Tusk Love after all. The one she was reading now was all about a druid who had fallen in love with a rogue who had ended up becoming a paladin of the Raven Queen after the Raven Queen had helped bring his sister back from the dead and it was all very romantic so far and sometimes sad but Jester was sure it had a happy ending. The druid in the book could turn into a tiger with super big fangs and Jester thought that was pretty awesome.

Caduceus smiles at her as she dumps her pineapples into the bowl, nearly filling it. “I think we have enough for everyone.” He starts measuring out spices into the palm of his hand and tossing them into a little bowl, mixing them before pouring them into the bigger bowl. “Lyta mostly liked turning into squirrels and jumping on my head. Sometimes she’d be a bear though, especially if we were fighting another bear.” He grabs the spoon and starts mixing the fruit and the spices together. “I think you two would really get along, if you ever met. You remind me of her sometimes. I mean, you don’t turn into a squirrel and jump on people’s heads or anything—“

“I would if I could!” Jester said, thinking of all the pranks she could play if she could turn into any animal she wanted. Maybe she could even turn herself into a unicorn hamster!

Caduceus laughs. “You _would_ , that’s what I’m talking about. You’re funny and fun to be around and protective, just like her. You’d get into all sorts of trouble together.” He spoons some fruit into a bowl and passes it to her. “Here, try this and tell me what you think.”

Jester pops a spice covered piece of mango into her mouth. It’s spicy and sweet and surprising and she loves it. “This is amazing!”

“You don’t think it needs anything?” Caduceus chews on a piece of pineapple with obvious enjoyment. “I mean, it tastes pretty good to me, but you’ve grown up eating this kind of fruit.”

Jester considers, then fetches one of the limes she found earlier and cuts it in half, squeezing some of the juice onto her portion. She takes a piece of papaya and holds the rest of the bowl out to Caduceus. “Here, try that,” she says as she tries the fruit, the lime juice adding a delightful acidic zing.

“Oh this is _great_ ,” Caduceus says after he samples the fruit. “This is just what everyone needs after the day we’ve had.” He starts spooning fruit into bowls and Jester adds some lime juice to each one. “You know, we make a pretty good team, I think.”

Jester grins. “I think so too! And if we find your family while we’re out having adventures, we should totally make this for them.”

“We should,” Caduceus says. “I’d like that.” His voice is getting softer all of a sudden. “I rather miss them. And they’d love this. Especially Lyta.”

Caduceus is starting to sound sad again, and that won’t do, not at all. “Hey, Caduceus? How old are you?”

“Ummmm.” Caduceus looks off into the middle distance for a moment. “I sort of stopped counting after awhile, there didn’t seem to be much of a point. Eighty maybe? A hundred? Somewhere in that general area maybe. Why?”

Oh wow. Okay. “Well, I was trying to figure out like, if I was your sister if I’d be your big sister or your little sister, except I guess you’d always be my big brother regardless because you’re so tall, so I’d always be your little sister anyway, but you’re also older than me, so I guess that would make you my _big_ big brother, and I’d be your _little_ little sister, if we were related, Which we’re not, so it’s kind of silly.”

“I don’t think it’s silly,” Caduceus says, and he doesn’t sound sad anymore. “There’s all different ways of being a family, and only some of them have to do with blood. Family is sort of like fruit, that way. You can pick your own.” He smiles. “I’d like having you as a sister, if you’d like having me as a brother.”

“Then it’s settled,” Jester says firmly, just as she hears Fjord calling to them from above. “C’mon, let’s bring this up to everyone, I can’t wait for them to try it!”

On deck, Jester stands next to Caduceus, her friend and now big big brother and smiles as everyone enjoys the food they made together. She gives him a little nudge with her shoulder and grins and he nudges her back with an elbow and smiles, no longer looking lost and sad and alone. Jester hopes he manages to save his home and reunite with his family, and that she’s there to help make both those things happen. After all, she wants to meet everyone, especially Caduceus’s big little sister. Maybe she can teach Jester how to turn into a squirrel and then they can have some _real_ fun. Caduceus won’t know what hit him.

**Author's Note:**

> I've only listened to Caduceus's intro to the group like 80 billion times, and he mentions having a "couple" of sisters, a brother, and a mother and father, and that his sister was the last to leave. At some point I developed the headcanon that it was his younger sister, who was fiercely protective of her much smaller older brother, and here we are.
> 
> I've been wanting to write something with Jester and Caduceus ever since the episode where they went shopping in Zadash together, because it was just so damn cute! And then this week when she was helping him through his existential crisis, I literally had to pause the episode so I could have Feelings.
> 
> I live in the northeast and not Los Angeles, so I have no idea what spicy fruit even is, but googling it got me some semblance of what I describe in the fic.
> 
> Jester is indeed reading "Feathered Leather" the book mentioned in episode 23, and I very much 100% believe that Scanlan wrote that book, and if he did, that he would have written Vax the happy ending he couldn't give him. (Yes I still have feelings about that.)
> 
> I'm angel-ascending over on Tumblr if y'all want to stop by and say hi!


End file.
